When Jonathan Tulloch’s novel about the efforts of two Gateshead teenagers to break into St James’ Park was filmed as Purely Belter in 2000, Newcastle United were the second richest club in the country and one of the scams involved making off with Alan Shearer’s car.
Lee Mattinson’s new adaptation, presented by Pilot Theatre and Northern Stage, prompts the question of whether any season-ticketless lads today would go to quite such lengths of begging, stealing and borrowing (though mostly stealing) to watch a team currently slightly off the pace in the Championship. But setting the action against the Magpies’ slide towards the second tier tempers the romance of the film and hardens the message that our sustaining hopes are often subject to disappointing reality checks.
As a northern fable, The Season Ticket bumps along somewhere between the genial wish fulfilment of Brassed Off and the hard-knock morality tale of Kes, which leads to some puzzling inconsistencies of tone. There’s no question that the Toon-mad teenagers, Gerry and Sewell, lead underprivileged lives, yet their fundraising efforts seem to be abetted by some of the most surprisingly lenient store detectives and truancy officers.
Yet Katie Posner’s boundlessly energetic production features two belting performances from Niek Versteeg as the philosophical Gerry (“Lads are like pasties – they come in different flavours”) and Will Graham as Sewell, who has equally forthright views on packets of crisps. “Ready salted?” he snorts, his face contorting in disgust. “I’m not on a diet, man.”
• At Northern Stage, Newcastle, until 8 October. Box office: 0191-230 5151. Then touring.
